CHRISTOPHER ROBBINS
Christopher Robbins, 30, Atlantic City New Jersey, one poem forthcoming in onthebus, most others under consideration
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It's your voice
That sometimes creeps
Savage-like; a wrought-iron
Beast best observed
Simply and steadfastly.
I sought visions
That crackled like streetlight.
I sought leather interior
In myself, in mystic mayhem,
Memorizing flashes of storm
Of inert consequence and desire.
I sought only what I knew
Backed up by logic, by snippets
Of dream. And you came
As if by chance but not chance.
You perfected the dance
Long before the dance required
A partner. And I sat
Stupefied by this mixture
Of archaic remembrance and delight.
You glow. I grow in your shadow,
A seed without light.
Trouble: a soft pageant of rain.
--------
A BETTER PLACE
sometimes i think it would be redemptive
and beautiful to die of cancer
at home or hospital
with loved one holding hands
and crying
maybe my son would say
i love you dad
why did you always yell at me
or never take me to the playground or beach
then he would kiss me on the forehead
then hug his mother
and whisper to her
he'll be in a better place soon
and while i'll argue
that there are many places
better than jersey
death isn't one of them
i'll tell my wife
i wish i was a better husband
that i wish i was there for her
more and she'll say i was
sweety how can you say that
but we both know it's true
she'll excuse herself
to go have a cigarette
and kiss me on the forehead
(who wants to kiss
the lips of the almost dead)
then I'll decide to die
i'll clutch my chest
feel the pain of the cancer
and the breath dissolve
i might even wonder what it's like
to have sex with an asian girl
and regret never doing so
but then
yes then
i'll be in a better place
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IN PRAISE OF MOTHER
You looked the interpreter of dreams with your wide green eyes,
lily pads floating in a sea of freckled whiteness.
Amazing you didn't dry up when the sun surprised you
with its cold brilliance
calling you every name in the book.
The name that meant the most you stashed away
deep in your womb, your wonderful stony womb,
with its dark, moldy crevices where even I hid away
on those days I longed for sainthood.
What happened to those dreams you birthed like slumbering babies
scooped from the belly like the insides of a pumpkin
--all pulp and seeds? Did you hold them to your tit,
let them latch on and learn to love the baked earth and mud
or did you take it the wrong way?
The way the lungs
take wrong the taste of water and seaweed.
We buried you in praise of Mother and her milk,
shook limbs and sweet breath from your bloated body
marrying you to dirt, to coffeegrounds, to eggshells.
Don't you wish sometimes you could share your breath
with the wilderness and your lover? Not the first time
you needed me--I still have the remainder of those visits
tattooed on my skin:
a circus, two violins, and a smile.
--------
AH-CHOO
chess
drinking beer
fucking
(jerking off
if you don't
have a woman or a man)
these are the things in life
that matter
not working or talking
or wiping your ass
with the daily news
when you run out
of toilet paper
not mothers or fathers
or nieghbors
or college
or church or community
or the laws of relativity
or fashion, well maybe fashion,
but not cunt or cock
or piss or shit
or the words ballsack,
creamcorn, knobgobbler,
fudgepacker, rainmaker, gravedigger,
middlefinger, medicated,
inflated, and pasta
--------
CORPUS DIDACTIC
the coffeehouses
with its chessplayers
and hipster intellectuals
are all the same
and soon become unbearable
and boring
the girls sit there
smoking cloves
looking angelic
showing flesh,
all sex and sin they are
the men sit there
showing sensitive
pinkies pointed to heaven
cocks pointed to hell
then go home and jerk off
wondering why they never get any
just once i'd like to see one
of them slap
their girl in the face
pound their chest
a gesture to real men
don't get me wrong
I'm not a real man either
but sometimes my soul
hurts from too much thinking
and vulnerability ouch
ouch
--------
SEARCHING FOR AMERICA
while passing through boston
the beantown of the soul
we fucked we fucked
in the trunk of her car
people walked by
as I deposited my quarters
in the parking meter
of her cunt
we cleaned ourselves with dirty socks
and fell asleep
two traveling
homeless
horny dreamers
illegally parked on the M.I.T. campus
--------
WE WHO BELIEVED(ONLY WHEN DREAMING)
we give the girl's mind
sacrament and fetish-ment
and blues and red and lavender
and the thought, the think, the blood,
once again the blood, always the blood,
as will be tomorrow, the shattered eyeballs,
the peas, porridge, pudding,
sad, sinking, stinking, sweet, sorry blood
of soul, cheek, tongue, tonsils,
the tendrils clasped tightly to the guts
pouring out of the belly button mind thoughts,
the soft, silly, burned-out, over-used, shat on
mind dance, word romance,
and who's to blame, who's to blame?
the mailman with his hard-on
delivering the mail, drinking his beer?
the old lady eating prunes, playing bridge,
wearing too much make-up?
the christ on the cross
getting a tan while I suffer happiness
and its relatives? the proctologist
with his hand up your ass looking for intelligence
but only finding corn and mediocrity?
the queers? the jews? your mom?
3rd grade teacher? the dog you never got?
the girl who stood you up? television?
your uncle Harvey who touched your weenie
when you were four? well which is it,
you sonofabitch?
--------
JUXTAPOSEDEROTICA
in the end it was the beer that got me
the silence
came later
and later still
your voice
your ass moved me beyond tears with its ample flesh
and puckered darkness
your vagina was a dream beyond dream beyond dream
starlit tits & pale ale my muse
i cum in fits of poetry and salt a blur
in your
eyes
--------
TATTLETALEBRAILLE
the sermon was long today
the salmon wrung wreaths
the salesman blew meter maids
i blew the north wind south
and now you're in trouble
with me with and with and with
do
you
care
about
me
more
than
the
mailman a postcard sent